City-state (Civ5)
Introduction City-states are small political entities introduced in Civilization V. In essence, they are single-city civilizations that do not compete against you or for the victory. How you deal with them is your choice - you can coddle them to improve relations, and eventually make them your friends or even allies; or you can conquer them (The Mongolian civilization is a specialist at conquering City-states); or you can just choose to ignore them. However, be mindful that they can be of immense help to you in the game, and also you will need them to win a Diplomatic victory. All of the short musical themes for the City-States were composed by Roland Rizzo and some are adapted from pre-existing music. Types of City-States There are different types of City-States, depending on what they are focused on: Cultured, Maritime and Militaristic. Two new types of city-states, Religious and Mercantile, are added in the Gods and Kings expansion. Each different type of City-state will provide you with a different additional bonus when you develop relations with them: Cultured City-states will give you culture each turn, Maritime City-states will give you food, and Militaristic City-states will provide units to your army. Religious City-states will give you faith each turn, while Mercantile City-states will give you happiness and unique resources, such as Porcelain and Jewelry, which cannot be obtained by any other means. Militaristic City-states have also been updated in Gods and Kings, giving them ability to gift you unique units from other Civs (for example, the Chu-Ko-Nu, a Chinese unique unit). City-state tech level and army All City-states progress technologically, producing Science just as a normal civilization. Their tech level varies, but it follows more or less the general tech level of the civilizations. This means that when most civilizations are in the Medieval era, most City-states will be there too. They develop the necessary technologies to access resources, including late-game Strategic Resources, such as Oil; they also develop military technology. All City-states build a small (sometimes not that small) army. Their units' tech level follows again the general tech level. This means when you decide to invade a City-state in the Modern Era, you can expect them to defend with Infantry, Artillery, etc. As a general rule, their army stays within, or close to, their borders. Sometimes, if they're at war with someone that has a city right nearby, the City-state will send their units to attack that city. In very rare cases they manage to capture another city, which is then added to their own territory (but there the expansion stops). City-states also build naval vessels, which sometimes explore the oceans far away from their territory (especially Caravels). It's also possible that a City-state produce an Airplane, although this is extremely rare. Relations and Influence points Relations with City-states depend on Influence points, which are organised in a scale going from -60 to +60. The amount of Influence points determines your influence level with the city-state. There are five different influence levels: *'Neutral' - You start on this level, and it means exactly what it says. The state is neither friendly, not hostile. You can move units through its territory, but each turn your units within there will anger the City-state, diminishing influence. *'Friends' - Gaining at least +30 Influence points will make you friends with the City-state. This causes the City-state to give you gifts based on their type, and grant you open border to their territory. Note that a single City-state can have an unlimited number of friends - technically all civilizations may befriend it! *'Allies' - If you gain more than 60 points of positive Influence, you become the City-state's patron, or in other words, they become your ally. This gets you larger gifts based on the type of the City-state, plus access to the City-state's luxury and strategic resources. You also gain permanent vision of the City-state's territory and units, and they automatically declare war on any civilization you are at war with. Note that a single City-state may only have one ally at a time. If more than one civilization have 60+ Influence points with it, it will ally itself with the one that has more Influence. *'Angry' - If you push the Influence scale in negative territory, the City-state will become gradually more and more hostile to you. It will cancel any quests it has given to you previously, and won't give you new quests until relations go back to Neutral. *'War' - On the other hand, the negative end of the Influence level scale is war. You can declare war against a City-state just like you declare war on another civilization, and the effects are pretty much the same as well. Once you irritate, harass and bully City-states enough, they will all join their forces and declare permanent war against you, which they will never stop - unless you conquer them, of course. If you are at war with a City-state, it's possible to negotiate peace with it. If the City-state, however, has a patron (another civilization as its allies), you will have to negotiate peace with the patron civ (provided you are at war with the patron civ). You cannot negotiate peace with City-states if you are in a permanent war. In Gods and Kings, there is a new influence level - Afraid. This is achieved by having a strong military presence near the City-state. You may request tribute from afraid City-states, for either some Gold or a Worker, but of course at the expense of Influence points. Influence has a natural tendency to gravitate towards the Resting Point of the scale, 0 by default. If positive, it will diminish each turn by 1 point, or if negative, it will increase each turn by 1 point. Certain civilization abilities and Social Policies (especially the Patronage tree) will change the speed with which influence changes naturally. Also, if the City-state shares the same religion as your official religion, influence will diminish/increase 25% slower/faster. And if you declare to be the City-state's Protector, the Resting Point of the scale will move up to +10. You can find some more information about Influence here. Interactions with City-states To communicate with City-states, just click on them. This gives you a simple menu which shows you their attributes and resources as well as your influence with them. There are various ways to increase the influence points you have with a City-state. The more basic ones are gifting gold (having in mind that the net benefit in making a large payment is bigger than the one from small payments; also, the effect diminishes the more often you make payments), or gifting units (although the amount of influence points you get is very low). Also, City-states can give you a tiny influence boost per turn if you pledge to protect them. Missions The best way currently to influence City-states is by performing missions for them. If they're at least Neutral to you, they'll occasionally contact you with a mission, and accomplishing it will give you influence points. The mission variety has been greatly expanded in Gods & Kings, there are some which are timed (for a max of 30 turns), some which apply to all civilizations in the game, while others apply only to you. The first kind is a race, where the civ which first meets the condition will gain influence. Here's the missions you can perform: *Destroy a nearby Barbarian camp *Kill Barbarian units near their lands *Acquire a great person of a certain kind *Construct a particular world wonder *Find a natural wonder (Any will do) *Find a particular civilization's land *Connect a certain resource to your trade network *Build a road to their city *Spread a certain religion to their city (Gods & Kings and Brave New World) *Conduct public infrastructure works (This will greatly increase the effect of Gold payments for 30 turns) *Help in a war against another civilization (By killing the enemy civ's units anywhere on the map) *Destroy another City-state (Only in vanilla) *Bully another City-state (Gods & Kings and Brave New World; replaces the "destroy another city-state" mission) When a City-state becomes victim of bullying (another civ demands tribute from them), they call for defense in the following manners, all of which only apply to you, and are valid for 30 turns: *Pledge protection to them - in this case only, the action will give you some influence *Denounce the civilization that bullied them *Give them a Gold gift - unlike the "Public Works" mission, this one is a single-use, giving you +20 Influence when you make the gift Finally, city-states will "Call for ..." (some stats here, Culture, Faith or Science). These missions are timed, and apply to all civs. Whoever gathers more of the particular stat at the end of turn 30 will gain a large influence boost. Ties are allowed - in this case all civilizations that were tied will gain influence. Note: While the Culture and Faith races call for a gross collection of points, the Science race applies to the number of technologies discovered, and NOT science points gathered. All ways to discover tech are applicable, including Espionage and Wonders or Social Policies that give free techs. Liberation A way to earn lots of influence points is liberating a City-state - If another player has conquered the City-state and you take it from them, you can choose to annex, puppet, or liberate it. Liberating a City-state makes it almost eternally grateful to you (meaning a lot of influence points), and the city is returned to the game as an individual City-state. Although the allied status will decrease over time, that City-state will always vote for the liberator in the United Nations vote. Tribute In Gods and Kings, there's a new interaction type - Ask for Tribute. This is literally bullying a City-state to give you either some Gold or a Worker. This will cause an immediate loss of Influence (You lose more Influence from demanding a Worker), and might spark diplomatic incidents, if the City-state has a protector. In the case you are protecting a City-state, and another civilization takes tribute from it, they'll expect you to at least express outrage. If you don't, you'll lose Influence and protection will be automatically cancelled. City-states and diplomatic victory City-states play a major role in diplomatic victories. When the United Nations wonder is built, a UN vote is scheduled every once in a while to vote for a world leader. Every City-state in play will vote for its ally or abstain. It is crucial to get City-states to back you, for they are the tie breakers. It is relatively simple to obtain votes from city states if quests they have issued have been completed. It is also possible to gain influence by bribery, and maxing out the influence possible by completing "investment projects" will give the best bang for the buck. Depending on how the game is configured (number of Civilizations and City-states), the City-states are necessary for having the majority vote. Brave New World With the introduction of the World Congress, City-states also receive an even larger role in achieving a diplomatic victory. From the Industrial Era and then, you can acquire more delegates by making allies of City-states. The more City-states allied with you, the more additional delegates you get. The conditions for a diplomatic victory remain the same. However, in Brave New World, the United Nations are no longer a buildable wonder. Instead, once any civilization reaches the Information Era, OR at least half the world's civilizations reach the Atomic Era, the World Congress becomes the United Nations, and from then, a vote for the World Leader will be held every 12 turns. Known bugs There is a post-patch bug which makes a request of connecting capital city with city-state impossible to finish. Simply nothing happens after connecting cities (Automated workers will still construct roads). A city-state can conquer another city. The conquered city will be razed (except for capital or another city-state). If you click on the razing city, it will bring you to the city-state screen. List of city-states The following are comprehensive lists of the city-states that can be found in the game. Mercantile and Religious city-states were added in the Gods and Kings expansion pack. Note that there are a limited number of city-states generated in the beginning of each game (depending on map size). The particular city-states are selected randomly among all five types, and distributed evenly around the map. The traits of a city with a particular name are always the same (i.e. Almaty will always be Militaristic), regardless of where the city is on the map; however, the resources it has access to differ according to its location from game to game (so that Almaty won't always have Iron and Cotton, for example). City-State Changes Pre-Expansion Sydney replaced Copenhagen as a City-State a day after the Denmark DLC pack was released. Quebec City replaced Oslo as a City-State as well. Kathmandu replaced Seoul as a City-State when the Korea DLC pack was released, the same day the August 2011 patch was released. Gods & Kings Dublin, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Stockholm and Vienna were removed as City-States and became individual cities of a few new civilizations (The Celts, Sweden and Austria). New City-States included in Gods and Kings are: *Milan, Prague and Yerevan (Cultured) *Jakarta, Lisbon, Manila and Mombasa (Maritime) *Antwerp, Cahokia, Colombo, Hong Kong, Marrakech, Zanzibar and Zurich (Mercantile) *Valletta (Militaristic) *Jerusalem, La Venta, Vatican City and Wittenberg (Religious) Geneva and Lhasa have been changed from Cultured City-States into Religious City-States. Genoa and Singapore have been changed from Maritime City-States into Mercantile City-States. Tyre has been changed from a Militaristic City-State into a Mercantile City-State. Brave New World Jakarta, Lisbon, Marrakech, Rio de Janeiro, Venice and Warsaw were removed as City-States and became the capitals of many new civilizations (Indonesia, Portugal, Morocco, Brazil, Venice and Poland, respectively). New City-States included in Brave New World are: *Bratislava, Buenos Aires, Kyzyl, Kabul and Kiev (Cultured) *Byblos, Mogadishu, Ormus, Panama City, Riga, Ur and Vancouver (Maritime) *Antananavario, Malacca, Melbourne and Samarkand (Mercantile) *M'banza Kongo and Sofia (Militaristic) *Ife (Religious) Kathmandu has been changed from a Cultured City-State into a Religious City-State. Achievements related to city-states Category:City-states Category:Civilizations (Civ5) Category:Civilizations Category:Civilization V Category:Cities Category:City concepts